In the spirit of is this good, I'll stipulate: college football IS good. However, there are some big problems, which is what this post will focus on. Enjoy!

Being a fan of college football is kind of like going to a strip club.

The first similarity is pretending.

The way strippers act—friendly, sexy, flirty—along with the fact there’s something inherently intimate about seeing someone’s privates, we kind of pretend we have a chance with them—even though we don’t.

Same thing when we watch college football: we wear the shirts, tribalize, day drink, eat too much—basically, all the things we did in college—even though we’re not 18 anymore and hangovers are a bitch. Not to mention the fact that most of us aren't in college anymore.

Second, we develop false expectations and become jaded.

The strippers aren’t hot enough, they’re spending too much time with a certain group, this place is dead—let’s go to the next one it’ll be better.

Just like college football: the next game will be a different story, the games on next week are better, next season we’ll have eight wins instead of six.

Third, we all know how it’s going to end.

For the strip club it’s going home—alone—with regret.

If you’re married, it’s because you know you should’ve spent that time with your wife and/or kids; if you’re single, it's because you could’ve spend the time talking to people you actually had a chance to date, and the fact your drunk ass had the Lyft driver stop at Taco Bell on the way home so you could belly down three grilled stuffed burritos.

And with college football? The same inevitable regret.

We watch a bunch of shitty, meaningless bowl games and then it’s Alabama vs. some other big program playing for the championship (Clemson, Florida State, Ohio State, etc.), which Alabama wins 2/3rds of the time, followed by the empty feeling that college football’s predictable and anti-climactic post season brings with it: damn. Only a month of the NFL left and then it’s a sports graveyard until March Madness and Opening Day (which of course only applies to those of us smart enough to like baseball).

But the last comparison is the most troubling.

Because whether the fun and excitement of the pole dance or the game distracts us from thinking about it, or we consciously push it out of mind, both the strip club and college football have a deep, dark underbelly.

Let’s face it: Destiny may have a pretty face and a great body, but chances are she was abused when she was younger, or she’s been forced into stripping for the money, and her life is probably pretty rough, exploitative, and/or abusive.

You know, just like your favorite college team’s middle linebacker.

He has dreams of the NFL, but the truth is he’s not fast enough to play on Sundays, and there’s a high likelihood he won’t graduate or if he does it’ll be with a degree that’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. What he will have, however, is a body riddled with injuries you’d only otherwise see in a car accident, and the specter of developing CTE for the rest of his adult life.

In sum, college football is fun and exciting, but it has some big problems too. Here’s a look at the problems and some potential fixes the NCAA and we as fans ought to consider…

Problem #1: Parity

Let’s start with parity—or in the case of college football—disparity.

At the beginning of the 2016 season, before any games had even been played, here are the teams I would’ve predicted to be in the college football playoff: Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, and Michigan.

As it turns out I was off by one—not sure if anyone saw Washington coming out of the Pac-12 with only one loss. I also would’ve guessed Alabama would win it all, and they came damn close; but if I couldn't take the Tide, I would’ve guessed Clemson.

What does it say about the parity and competitiveness of a sport when we can predict the winners to a large degree of accuracy before the season even starts?

(My predictions this year: Alabama vs. Ohio State—no, that’s not going out on a limb, but if you want to bet against me, I’ll take it)

The NBA has the same problem: we all knew Golden State would play Cleveland for the NBA Championship this year (and that the Warriors would likely win it). And I guess if you’re a diehard, that’s OK, but it kills it for me. I’m not the biggest basketball fan in the world, but I live in Portland, I love the Blazers, and if there was any parity in the NBA whatsoever, I’d pay a lot more attention.

But when we know almost certainly who’s going to win, what’s the point? The best thing about watching any individual sporting event is that we don’t know what the outcome will be—and unlike a book or movie, which usually follow some pretty predictable patterns—in sports, we really don’t know.

Prolonged dominance, like Alabama’s, can absolutely add to the drama—but only if there are occasional upsets—which is why Clemson’s win was a huge boon for college football.

But one season doesn’t fix a systemic problem.

Past champions--not a lot of diversity here: all big name programs, mostly from the South/SEC.

The biggest problem for parity in college football is that not only do the top tier programs get the best players and win most of their games, but even if they stumble, like Ohio State did against Penn State, they still get put into the playoff, so what should’ve been a meaningful upset turns out not to matter at all.

The same was true for Alabama. Does anyone honestly think if the Tide lost to Auburn last year they would’ve been left out of the playoff? If you do, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

So while the Alabama’s and Ohio State’s and Michigan’s and Florida State’s of the world have to lose two games in order to be left out, other teams can lose maybe once—remember, there was a lot of talk about putting a two-loss Michigan or Penn State in the playoff over one-loss Washington, a team that certainly acquitted themselves better against Alabama than did Ohio State vs. Clemson.

The Fix: Expand the Playoff Field and Allow Transfers to Play Immediately

College football should expand from a four team playoff to a twelve team tournament: the five major conference champions (SEC, Pac-12, Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC—and I’d do away with the conference championship games—just take the team with the best record in that conference) plus seven at-large bids.

The teams are seeded by the Playoff Committee, with the top four receiving a bye for the first round. Then 5 plays 12, 6 plays 11, etc., with the top seeds getting home games. The winners of those games then play away against the top four seeds—for example, the winner of the 8/9 matchup would play the 1 seed.

After the quarterfinals sorted themselves out, we’d have a semi-final almost exactly the same as it is now, with the remaining four teams playing at one of the traditional New Year’s Day bowls, and then a championship two weeks later.

Why 12 teams?

Well, if we simply expanded to eight, the big five conferences are going to demand that their champions be guaranteed a spot, leaving only three at-large bids, which is too few.

Consider the 2016 season: it would’ve been awesome to see a Florida State or USC or Oklahoma in the playoffs, but with an eight team field, it’s likely at least two of them are left out. Plus, this solves your fans traveling problem, because we’d have home games for the first two rounds.

Finally, is there a chance the number 12 team in the country can beat the number one team? Absolutely. Think about it this way: wouldn't we want to watch a 1 vs. 12 matchup during the regular season? Granted it’s a slippery slope to be sure, of where that cutoff lies, but for football it would be impractical to play more than four post-season games—note too that we’d be cutting back to an 11 game schedule with no conference championship games, so the total number of games played by the champion would be a maximum of 15, same as it is now. The other thing I like about a 12 team field is that you can give a bye and a guaranteed home game to the top four teams, rewarding those who have the best season.

And who knows: maybe we still end up with a lot of Championships for the Alabama’s and Ohio State’s of the world, but a larger field would give more teams a chance—and along with it, more exposure, which might help other schools catch up to the game’s premiere recruiters.

The other thing that would help is to allow student-athletes to transfer and play the same year. Right now, most transfers have to sit out a year, which prevents a lot of highly talented guys from leaving programs where they end up second or third string when they could be starting and excelling at other schools.

And let’s be clear: most players aren’t going to transfer anyway, so I don’t want to hear any slippery-slope bullshit—transferring is a pain in the ass (I know, because I did it twice) that requires a big move to new, uncomfortable surroundings.

But if they want to, let ‘em. It’s one way college football could increase parity, empower players, and democratize the process.

In a lot of games it basically comes down to who happens to have the ball last—which is arguably why Clemson won last year (I’m sure Tide fans will agree with me). And maybe that’s exciting for those who like seeing endzone dances and a lot of points on the board, but after awhile it takes away from the basic allure that sporting events have, which again, is the fact we truly don’t know what’s going to happen. In other words, when scoring becomes inevitable, it’s boring.

The other thing is that it makes the games longer. Because every time someone scores, there’s usually two advertising breaks—one after the score and one after the kickoff. The clock is stopped, players aren’t playing, and you and I are either bored or staring at our phones to fill the time.

And to be frank, the games are already pretty damn long.

Why? Well, scoring is one problem. But they also stop the clock on every first down and review all the scoring plays—plus other plays where there’s a turnover or a catch is in question.

But seriously, four and a half fucking hours to watch a college football game? Are you kidding me? It’s especially brutal for fans of teams with late games—I’m an Oregon State fan, so trust me, I know. The game doesn’t end until midnight, and with traffic you don’t get home until 2 am. It’s brutal. And it kinda ruins your weekend.

The Fix: Don’t Stop the Clock on First Downs and Fix Challenges

The first thing that addresses both scoring and game length is to just let the clock run. Guy goes out of bounds, fine, but stopping the clock on first down is silly and totally unnecessary. There’s no good reason to do it, it adds a lot of time to the game and leads to more scoring, which causes games to last even longer.

Second, don’t review every scoring play. Let the plays stand as they’re called on the field, give coaches flags like they have in the NFL, and let them be responsible for deciding when to challenge. If it’s a crucial spot in the game, they will. If not, the clock continues running and the game goes on.

Problem #3: Player Compensation

College football is an industry worth billions and billions of dollars a year—and nearly all of those profits go to media executives, school administrators, the NCAA, and coaches.

In other words, everyone gets in on the action EXCEPT the players themselves, the very people without whom the game wouldn’t be possible.

Yes, many of them get scholarships, and there’s benefits like stipends and free meals and getting laid by beautiful girls who wouldn’t know your name if you weren’t on the football team, which is all well and good, but it’s still a pittance compared to the value they are providing our economy and their universities.

Sorry, but that’s the truth. College coaches make nearly as much as coaches in the NFL and the TV deals for individual leagues are worth billions, but none of that’s possible without players on the field. And generally speaking, if those players ever want to get paid playing on Sunday, they HAVE to play college football for at least three years. Not quite slavery, but there’s nothing democratic or capitalist about it either.

That’s bad. Especially in a sport where your career could end on any one play, and merely playing at all risks life-long health consequences years later.

So players need to get paid, but the question is how? More in scholarships or stipends? More girls? Kidding. No, in all seriousness what college football should do are two things:

1) Allow players to profit off their names and likenesses.

2) Introduce profit sharing for each and every game they play in—at least 10-15% of the profits.

The first idea is simple: if you’re Deshaun Watson, or Leonard Fournette, or Christian McCaffrey, you ought to be able to sell Jerseys, autographs, or profit off of your likeness in a video game. And this would solve one problem, which is that big time players should probably get more benefit than guys who won’t be playing at the next level. They provide more value, right? So they should reap more of the profits. It’s called capitalism.

The second part is where the team comes in, and it’s also a pretty basic concept: whatever the profits are for each game—namely stadium and TV profits—players should get a cut (10-15%) that’s evenly divided between both teams, and every player should get an equal share. Maybe you even structure it so that the home team gets a bigger cut.

The concept makes sense, right? The players are directly generating these profits. Therefore, it seems reasonable they ought to get something for every game they play. And this solves the problem of trying to figure out a stipend or salary system that would force colleges to decide which players should be paid what—instead, it’s simple: players get a small portion of profits for each game, and the more/bigger games they play in, the more money they make.

Sure, I guess one could argue this might send more players to the big boys, but anyone who strictly wants a payday is already headed to the Alabama’s and Ohio State’s of the world as it is now. And actually, this system could actually offer a strong counter to the Big Boys. Think about it—if you can sell your name/likeness, what’s better: being another five-star recruit on Ohio State, or being the only five-star recruit on Oregon State and the most valuable player on the team? My guess is the latter sells more jerseys, autographs, etc.

An additional bonus here is that it would behoove schools to play decent teams out of conference rather than Directional State, because those games are more likely to draw fans and television coverage, which means more money for the players.

And shit I don’t know. Maybe this doesn’t work. Maybe these are crazy, no-good ideas that aren’t practical for any number of reasons…

But we can’t go on like this. College football players deserve to get paid more for what they do. What we’re seeing right now is downright immoral. They ARE NOT amateur athletes in any sense of the word: the risks they take are greater, the time and dedication they commit are profound, and let’s face it—they make a lot of people, including their own coaches, fantastically rich.

It’s about time players made some of that money too.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, you can support me and isthisgood.org in several ways:

1) Share this post on social media, email, or by word of mouth. Also, sign up for the isthisgood.org email list.

4) Buy my first novel, Cherry City Pulp: a modern satire set in Salem, OR. The story follows five different characters lives as they slowly become entangled, ending in a modern tragedy with which we're all too familiar...

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. The advice below is based on my own experience as well as significant research, but this is not official medical advice. If you are genuinely concerned about your health and/or diet, please rely on your physician’s advice.

Earlier this year, I needed a change. My wife and I were getting divorced. I was drinking too much. I was overweight and didn’t have the motivation to do much of anything.

The first step was getting healthy, and my cousin challenged me to do the Whole 30, a diet that heavily restricts what you can eat: no bread, no sugar, no alcohol, no soy, no rice, no corn, no dairy—only fruits and vegetables (including potatoes), healthy oils (like coconut, olive, vegetable, avocado, etc.), meat, and nuts (but no peanuts).

Seeing the success she’d had on the diet, I decided to give it a try.

TL;DR—it worked.

In fact, it worked incredibly well. And even though the proponents of the diet say it’s not primarily intended for weight loss, I lost a ton of weight. I went from 325 pounds to 300 in about four months. Not only that, but I felt better. My vision was clearer, my asthma improved, my GERD went away, I had more energy, etc.

Of course, maybe that’s just what happens when you lose a bunch of weight and stop drinking, but about the same time I stumbled onto Tim Ferriss’ podcast and came across the ketogenic diet.

What is the Ketogenic Diet?

It’s best explained in Tim’s interviews with Dom D’Agostino, but basically, the ketogenic diet is a high fat, low carb diet. The concept is this: ordinarily, our bodies burn sugar—or glycogen—for energy. However, when the body runs out of glycogen, it starts to burn fat by creating ketones, which are water soluble fat molecules. By eating a diet that severely limits carbohydrates and to some extent, protein, we can prompt our body to burn ketones instead of glycogen, including some of the body fat we’ve already stored.

One way to think about this is fasting—after 24-48 hours of not eating, the body will naturally enter a state of ketosis, because we’ve burned up all of our stored glycogen and the body has only fat available to use for energy (if you’re curious as to why this happens, be sure to read the last piece on Evolutionary Theory and the Toba Catastrophe).

The Good?

To bring this full circle, what I realized is that while on the Whole 30, I was inadvertently putting my body into ketosis a lot more often, because the diet severely restricts the number of carbs you can eat, which necessarily meant increasing fat and protein intake.

So it explained the fat loss, but it also explained why I felt better on so many levels.

The reason: high carb diets cause a lot of inflammation. It’s kind of a vicious cycle:

1) We eat a carb heavy meal—say a sandwich.

2) As our body breaks down the sandwich, our blood sugar spikes, because now all the sudden we’ve got a bunch of excess energy as our body burns through those carbs.

3) This prompts the to body produce insulin, which reduces blood sugar.

4) As our blood sugar drops, we crash—you know: that low energy, tired feeling people tend to get in the afternoons? That’s a sugar crash. And then:

5) We start to feel hungry again—often intensely hungry—because our blood sugar has plummeted, which often causes people to binge with a big meal. And then the cycle repeats.

In other words, a high carb diet causes a lot of sudden changes in the body’s chemistry, and as a result, a fair amount of low grade inflammation, a state that’s associated with many chronic diseases, including cancer, type-2 diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and others.

On the flip side, diets that are high in healthy fats are shown to drastically decrease inflammation. Scientists haven’t pinned down exactly why, and I’m not sure it matters too much to the ordinary person, but basically, the way the body processes and then uses fats just doesn’t cause problems the way eating carbs does. In addition, it appears that many kinds of fats have protective effects on our tissues: brain, heart, muscles, liver, etc.

The Bad?

Of course, the ketogenic diet has it’s detractors.

One point many make is that it’s just a hell of a lot of fat to eat, and fat intake has historically been shown to cause certain problems, like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Others point to the potential loss of certain kinds of nutrients and minerals as a result of cutting out carbohydrates, especially fruits and starchy vegetables. Some dieticians, including Bonnie Taub-Dix, have warned that people with heart disease or diabetes should especially stay away.

Ironically, Dr. D’Agostino would point out that when put on a keto diet, many diabetics see their symptoms significantly decrease as their blood sugar stabilizes—some even see their diabetic symptoms subside entirely.

The heart disease aspect is another matter. Here the ketogenic diet is a little problematic because one of the markers for heart disease is elevated triglycerides in the blood stream. Triglycerides are fats. Now on the one hand, it’s hard to imagine that one can go around eating tons of fat every day for years and years and not have that increase our triglyceride levels; but on the other, we have to remember that the macronutrient makeup of the food we eat doesn’t necessarily translate into those macronutrients directly assimilating into the body.

A good example here is eggs. At one point it was believed eggs were horribly unhealthy because as everyone knows, eggs have a ton of cholesterol, and the conventional thinking was that if you eat a bunch of cholesterol, your cholesterol levels will increase. Ultimately, however, researchers have found that this isn’t the case—that in fact, eggs are one of the more healthy foods one can eat, and that consuming a lot of them isn’t linked to a marked or problematic increase in cholesterol.

But to answer the question about heart disease, a recent study using obese human subjects (not rats, which is an absurd way to study what a diet would do in humans) showed that a long term ketogenic diet, “decreased the level of triglycerides, LDL cholesterol, and blood glucose.” In other words, exactly what you’d want to do in order to avoid heart disease.

Is This Good?

The answer here is a fairly straightforward “yes” with a few caveats. The caveats are these: a Keto diet may not be good for everyone, and the best way to check if it’s right for you is to see how your blood work looks after a couple months on the diet and by consulting your doctor. If you get wacky numbers that are unhealthy, obviously, you should probably stop and do something else.

Overall, however, the Keto diet appears to have many very real and beneficial qualities. In most people, it reduces inflammation, decreases blood glucose levels, and lowers cholesterol and triglycerides. But besides that it’s an awesome way to lose weight, look and feel better.

Using the Whole 30, I went from 325 to 300 in about 4 months. When I transitioned to Keto, I went from 300 to 280 in 2 months. So, given that the more weight you lose the more difficult it is to lose weight, the Keto diet is pretty exceptional when it comes to shedding the lbs.

Additionally, my thought processes are clearer, I’m tired less often, and I’ve fasted for up to 48 hours without feeling any real dip in energy. Skeptics might say that’s just because I’ve lost a bunch of weight and am now healthier, but it’s also important to point out that the ketogenic diet allowed me to lose that weight, so to that I say, “neener, neener, neener…” you know the rest.

General Diet Advice

OK, putting the Keto diet aside, scientific studies, the medical community, and modern nutritionists are pretty much in agreement on a few basic guidelines for a healthy diet:

1) Eat a lot of fruit and vegetables—especially vegetables—especially leafy green ones. Be careful here not to eat fruit in excess, as it's quite high in sugar and can spike your blood sugar levels just like a piece of bread would. A good idea is to consume your fruit alongside fat and/or protein, which buffers the glycemic effect of the fructose.

2) Eat a good balance of fat and protein.

a. On this point people will quibble about lean protein vs. fatty protein, but to me the most important thing is how the animal was raised. Was it fed a bunch of chemicals in a cage, or did it roam around doing what it would normally do until meeting its untimely end? For example, I’d rather eat a hamburger with 20% fat content made from organic, grass-fed, pasture raised beef than a lean breast of a chicken that was raised in a tiny cage and fed genetically modified corn.

b. Fish, nuts, and eggs are some of the healthiest ways to get protein, as they are high in micro nutrients, like omega 3 fatty acids and various minerals, which are good for your heart. A note here: when it comes to eating fish, stay away from farmed fish. Not only is it terrible for the environment, but there’s also mounting evidence to suggest farmed fish doesn’t contain nearly as many of those lovely micronutrients we get from wild fish.

c. Opt for healthier, plant based fats over animal fats and dairy. Avocados, coconut oil, olive oil, etc. Although it should be noted that butter from grass fed cows is actually being found to be just fine, despite all the bad talk we hear about butter. One thing to be aware of here: dairy messes with some people’s systems (like mine), so try to be cognizant of what you’re eating and how it affects your body. As with everything, we’re all a little different.

3) Cut out carbohydrates as much as possible. One of Michael Pollan’s rules is: “the whiter your bread, the sooner you’ll be dead.” In other words, the less refined sugar and white flour you eat, the better. Refined sugar is about the worst possible thing you can eat, because your body burns it unbelievably quickly, causing your blood sugar to spike, and then works on turning the rest of it into fat to store on those pesky love handles.

4) Limit alcohol consumption. This is a hard one for me, because I love a good craft beer or glass of red wine, but in large quantities, alcohol decreases our metabolism, increases inflammation, and is a big source of empty calories. One of the reasons I was able to lose so much weight this year is simply due to severely cutting down on the amount of alcohol I consumed.

5) Have an idea of how much you’re eating in terms of calories. The most basic diet advice out there is: calories in vs. calories burned. If you burn more calories per day than you take in, you’ll lose weight. If you take in more, you’ll gain weight. It’s that simple. The cool thing I noticed about doing the Whole 30 and Keto diets is that I just wasn’t that hungry and therefore didn’t eat as much.

6) Occasionally, fasting is good. It’s up to you how much you want to fast and for how long, but fasting helps the body reset, cleanse itself, and was a natural part of the human life cycle for most of our history. Going 24, 36, even up to 48 hours without eating is, on occasion, very good for you. The only caveat I’d add here is to consult your physician and/or work yourself into it. Tim Ferriss fasts for at least five days straight, four times a year—but he’s trained his body to be OK with that. A good way to start might simply be to wake up one day and not eat anything until dinner—that’s a 24 hour fast, assuming you ate around the same time the day before, and unless you have a particular medical issue (like, hypoglycemia), you’ll be just fine.

7) Allow yourself to cheat every once in a while. After all, what’s the point of living and looking great and being fit if you can’t enjoy yourself? Going to a friend’s wedding? Have some drinks, eat the potatoes au gratin, scarf down a big slice of wedding cake. A few cheats here and there won’t matter in the long run, as long as you’re careful about what you eat most of the time.

Here’s a link to Tim Ferriss’ slow carb diet, which is pretty much along the lines of what I’ve described above, but a little more prescriptive.

Evolution and the Toba Catastrophe Theory

So why is it humans do better on a diet of mostly plants, natural fats, and proteins? Well, for the most part, because that’s how we evolved.

Agriculture was only developed in the fertile crescent (modern day Iraq, Syria, Iran, etc.) around 10-12,000 years ago. So humans have only been consuming grains and breads for a short time span relative to our evolutionary history.

Before this, as we know, most human societies were small tribes of hunter-gatherers, and ate whatever they could find or kill: edible plants, roots, berries, fruit (when it was in season), and whatever animals they had access to, ranging from snails and mollusks up to larger game like elephants and elk, or in prehistoric times, mammoth and other megafauna. If they came across grains they certainly would’ve eaten them, but primitive human societies simply didn’t have much access to things like wheat, oats, and barley, and even then, it would’ve been like fruit, only when in season.

This is also the reason there’s nothing wrong with fasting, which forces the body into ketosis—it’s a natural part of our evolution. It’s hard to imagine now, but for most of human history, large numbers of people regularly died of starvation; there were simply many times when there just wasn’t enough food to eat.

Some scientists also theorize that humanity went through an intense bottleneck called Toba Catastrophe Theory.

It goes something like this: around 75,000 years ago, a volcano in Indonesia (Toba) had a massive explosion—one of the largest in world history—and as a result of all the ash and dust thrown into the atmosphere, global temperatures suddenly dropped 2-3 degrees Celsius.

Those who subscribe to the Toba theory believe this caused many plant and animal species to die off suddenly, many of which served as food sources for early humans. In order to survive, humans went to the coasts of Southern Africa, where they ate a diet heavy in sea life, including mollusks, muscles, and clams, but also larger animals like seals, whales, and whatever fish they could catch. During this time, it’s thought that the total human population may have dropped to around 40,000 individuals or fewer, or what scientists call an evolutionary bottleneck—meaning those who survived had to have certain specific qualities, in this case being able to adapt to a low calorie diet comprised primarily of shellfish and animal fat.

Recent studies have cast doubt as to how accurate this theory is, but it’s an interesting idea, and I bring it up here simply to point out that how we got here matters, and that Toba or no, humans evolved to eat meat, fruit, nuts, and vegetables/plants, not breads and refined sugars.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please do your thing on social media and share, tweet, and/or post this article for your peeps. You can also support me with a direct donation or by becoming a sponsor on Patreon. Thank you in advance for your contribution! Finally, check out my first novel, Cherry City Pulp—a satire of modern society set in Salem, OR, about teaching, high school, relationships, and how chance and coincidence can culminate in both joy and tragedy. Cheers, and thanks for reading!

The assistant coach questioning another coach’s instructions while working with players.

The real estate agent pushing a house they can’t sell on impressionable clients.

The doctor who receives samples from a pharmaceutical company and finds herself prescribing their products.

The mortgage broker who approves a loan he doesn’t think the client can afford.

The contractor skimming a little extra off the cost of materials.

The politician who makes promises she has no intention of keeping.

It happens all the time. Small selfish or reactionary choices we all make as individuals, whether in work, at home, or with friends and family.

Sometimes it’s not even a conscious choice; it’s just the momentum of the day, the week, or the job. Paperwork to stay in compliance with some obscure company policy. A colleague who wants to talk sports or politics. A thorny client. One bad decision made weeks or even months ago. The minutia of the moment, the splintering of time by email, meetings, phone calls, appointments, social media, smart phones, dates, meals, workouts, practice…

Sometimes we’re so busy we forget why we’re doing any of it.

And that’s the problem. We forget to ask three simple questions:

1) Why am I doing this?

2) What are the results of my actions?

3) Is this good?

Part of the reason (we don’t ask) is that the answer is so often implied.

A teacher goes to work to teach his students. The good is obvious. Children need to learn, and their teacher facilitates their learning. Good.

It’s like that with most jobs—at least in their most basic functions. A banker lends money to people who want to start a business or buy a home. Good. A manager supervises her employees to help them deliver a good or service to customers. Good. A truck driver hauls products to a store in a safe and timely manner. Good.

But then come the rules and incentives: (carrot) if the truck driver can make his deliveries faster, he receives a bonus; (stick) if the truck driver does not make his deliveries in a certain time frame, he is docked some portion of his pay.

And this happens everywhere. There are all sorts of perverse incentives that exist in every job—reasons to do something other than whatever action that will accomplish the most good. Sometimes it’s adhering to government regulations or self-imposed bureaucratic company policies. Sometimes it’s the way companies hire or promote employees to fill empty positions. Sometimes it’s competing resources or personalities—office politics, if you will. And every one of these acts as a distraction from the good that the individual should be doing.

Now, enter the ego.

This is my project, my meeting, my classroom. Mine. This guy’s on my team--therefore an attack on him is an attack on me. I feel like I know more than this person, so I’m going to be uncooperative and undermine them. The goal of this meeting is to disseminate information so our employees can be more effective, but what I really want is to be praised for my presentation and its beautiful graphics.

The final part is even more insidious: the constant drip, drip, drip of information—the next shiny object—the next big scandal. Now it has nothing to do with our jobs--it's everyone taking part in this big collective narrative, with villains and heroes, motives and conspiracies, winners and losers—all manipulated by competing agendas, the foremost of which is generating views, likes, hits, and ratings. Never mind the truth of the matter—there’s a story that needs telling. A hot take. A pundit’s pronouncement. And everyone has to weigh in.

Of course, depending on whether one is liberal or conservative, we alternately praise or fume with outrage, as if feeling indignant or hopeful is going to matter concretely in some way. Again, the question—is this good?—is forgotten. No, it’s about outrage and teams and tribes and blame--and ultimately, hatred.

All of which is why we’ve come to such a desperate place as a society. Because in so many of our actions and the matters with which we concern ourselves, whether what we’re doing is actually worthwhile, purposeful, and/or good doesn’t even enter into to the equation.

Take Rush Limbaugh for example. His initial purpose was laudable: to provide a place where conservative ideas and policies can be discussed and debated. And certainly, there was a demand for that sort of programming. But at some point that purpose was perverted into either:

a) attacking Democrats/liberals, or,

b) cheerleading the actions and policies of Republicans regardless of their legitimacy.

In other words, his answers to the three questions changed.

1) Why am I doing this?

Before: to provide a genuine discussion of conservative ideas.

Now: to make people angry and/or entertain them so they’ll listen to the show, so I can make a ton of money I can use to buy hookers and prescription drugs.

2) What are the results of my actions?

Before: tremendous energy for the conservative community—a place where folks can discuss their frustrations and ideas about politics.

Now: my listeners are complete idiots, because I’ve convinced them anything they disagree with is wrong; they're a group of non-thinking, angry followers who've lost much of their humanity.

Clinton got into politics for a lot of really good reasons—and accomplished a ton of good in her political career (no, she didn't kill anyone or commit any horrific crimes--if she had, she'd surely be in jail by now, and if you think I'm wrong, ask yourself what good it does to believe something about someone you and no one else can prove, and really only because you don't like them). But at some point, her answers to these basic questions didn’t resonate with people. To a large swath of Americans, it looked something like this:

1) Why am I doing this?

Hillary: it’s my turn to be president.

Trump: to make America great again.

Winner: Trump.

2) What are the results of my actions?

Hillary: to maintain the status quo, with some small tweaks to Obama’s policies.

Trump: to bring change to Washington, drain the swamp, etc.

Winner: Trump.

3) Is this good?

Hillary: it’s OK, but hey, you don’t want Trump to be president do you? He’s terrible.

Trump: YES! I’m making promises to everyone—everything is going to better! MAGA!!!

Winner: Trump.

Of course, it’s easy to criticize politicians and pundits, but the truth is we see the consequences of not answering these very basic questions in our everyday lives.

For example, why do we give kids 8-10 weeks off every summer? It’s proven to make them dumber. The same question could be asked about why we start high school before 8:30. Science says that’s also a stupid thing to do, but most US high schools do it anyway.

Similarly, many corporations start their employees with two weeks of vacation a year. Why? It doesn’t matter that it’s cruel and unreasonable—that’s how it was done in the old days, and by God that’s the way they’re going to do it. It’s the same reason they move shitty managers around rather than firing them, or demand performance reviews that go to sit in file cabinets indefinitely.

All those little mundane practices that don’t matter and waste everyone’s time; every arbitrary schedule, appointment, meeting, and irrational deadline. It doesn’t matter if it’s good—that’s completely beside the point.

No, you see, it's about maintaining the status quo--and why? Because it's easier. If you don’t rock the boat, you don’t raise any waves, and that’s part and parcel to everything else. The reality is that a lot of people are comfortable with the status quo, even if they realize it's causing quite a bit of unnecessary suffering for others.

So instead of asking, "is this good?" they’re asking: what can I do to avoid criticism? How can I make my job easier? Who should I blame if something goes wrong? Why should I care about X? What excuses can I give for not doing my best? How can I get more power/get promoted/earn more money?

And frankly, that’s why our world is shitty. Too many of us would rather stick to our ridiculous routines—our comfortable lack of purpose—than answer those questions. To be sure, for a lot of people it’s unconscious, which is why I’m pointing it out.

Because “is this good?” matters. In fact, I'd argue it's all that matters.

The upside is we can choose to answer those questions in our own lives, and it’s a tremendous advantage. As our actions become more virtuous, efficient, and purposeful, everything changes for the better. We do better work, make more money, have better relationships, and ultimately, bring more enjoyment and satisfaction into our lives.

Why am I doing this?

What are the results of my actions?

Is this good?

Let’s ask ourselves those questions every once in a while. And let's ask others why they're not asking those questions of themselves.

If you enjoyed this post, please share with friends, family, or hell, even your enemies. Also, check out my work on medium, as well as my new book, Cherry City Pulp.